Wampler Pedals has unveiled a new fuzz pedal for players who are tired of clones, who will entertain the idea of summoning some gated, Velcro-ripping magick from their pedalboard, but at the same time are not quite ready to forego classic Muff, Tone Bender and Fuzz Face sounds.
It’s called the Cryptid Fuzz, and Brian Wampler – a man who admitted to MusicRadar that he will often build himself a circuit for his own amusement – describes it as “the culmination of everything I’ve ever wanted in a fuzz pedal”.
And when you consider what Wampler wants from a fuzz, that’s a big ask.
“For me, a perfect fuzz needs to nail the Fuzz Face thing, the Big Muff thing, the Tone Bender thing, and even some glitchy, Velcro-like stuff,” he explains. “But it also needs to clean up well, have a great tone control, and work as an overdrive or even a glassy clean boost when needed. That’s exactly what I built the Cryptid Fuzz to do.”
So it’s a fuzz for those who want an all-original homage to the classics, for those who want some more anarchic electric guitar tones, too.
But Wampler also says this is a fuzz for those players – and there are many of them out there – who just don’t get on with fuzz. Because, let’s face it, some fuzzes dominate the conversation and take over. Wampler says the Cryptid is designed to stack well with other drives.
Allow us to interject a pre-requisite for our perfect fuzz here, too. It can’t be too complicated. We don’t want to use the manual. And here, well, the Cryptid Fuzz does not look like a mystery whose secrets aren’t so jealously guarded; there are only four knobs for starters.
Volume controls overall output. Fuzz dials in the amount of gain. Tone is tone – turn clockwise for more brightness, and vice-versa, and then there’s Character.
This, again, is none too complicated; you might otherwise know it as a bias control, and it’ll take you from all those warm, smooth and open fuzz tones to nastier sounds.
“Think Hendrix, Eric Johnson, Mick Ronson, Billy Corgan, J Mascis, and Jack White,” says Wampler. “I put a little bit of them all in there.”
He also put in two toggle switches to complement the four-knob layout. There is a Chime switch that adds three levels of “harmonic sparkle”, and a Tight switch, which similarly offers three different levels of low-end response.
Wampler says the Cryptid Fuzz can get close to that tube amp warmth if you want it, and the Tight and Chime switches make it easy to get “a fat, singing distortion that’s never muddy or shrill”.
The Cryptid Fuzz is available now, priced £/.$199. See Wampler Pedals for more details.
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